VIDEO GAMES HELP MILITARY PERSONNEL TO COPE WITH ANXIETY

8/18/2017 8:29:56 AM

Jaime Banks, a professor from the West Virginia University, grew up in a military family. She observed that her family members found stress relief through video games.

Talking of this she says "I watched how gaming helped them deal with anxiety, with the everyday stress of their jobs and even inspiring them to approach their jobs in different ways. Noticing this, I decided to start looking into how military service members and veterans might be engaging games as coping tools."

Through her study she found that almost half of the gamers used video games to manage the challenges connected with their military service. Their coping mechanisms were managing self-diagnosed psychological and/or physical ailments, connecting with civilian life, seeking social support (especially through hugely multiplayer internet games), and escapism.

Her study also revealed that those militants who relied on video games to cope with anxiety tended to serve in military longer. And, they accounted high fantasy, escape, and skill-development enthusiasms for gameplay.

She found that their most favorite category of games was fantasy, while military themed games ranked the second. Though uncommon, avatars appeared to be specific agents for coping with military related stress.